Raleigh-area Mall / RTP Redevelopments

I don’t see Durham building a 30 story tower before Raleigh an embarrassment. Maybe it will light a fire under developers in Raleigh to build higher.

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Agreed. For me, it’s more about contiguous street level experience and Raleigh’s going gangbusters on that around the city. With Raleigh Crossing, Bloc83 and Smoky Hollow, the west side of DT experience is going to be way more contiguous and robust. It will be like the return of “the mall”, but this time outdoors and way more interesting.

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Agreed. I think Raleigh is doing just fine. Yes, I hope some of these projects get off the ground soon but there are some exciting things happening here.

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Street-level experience for sure. I would rather have a ten-story building with street level engagement over a thirty-story building just for the sake of height. Look at the Oakbrook Terrace Tower in suburban Chicago for example.

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You have to remember that 121 F was only submitted for plan approval a couple of months ago. Nothing much is going to be said until they actually have the approval. That’s going to be true for any project in the system. Once they get approval, it may take off like gang busters or sit around like 400H. You never really know.

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What’s the latest on the Crabtree tower on Sears property? Did the rezoning request come before (old) council or pushed back?

That looks just like Liberty Place in Philadelphia, but ugh…awful location. University Tower in Durham is their tallest, but it’s got the same problem. Maybe the South Square redevelopment will stretch across 15-501.

To tie this back into the mall redevelopments subject, I actually got some good Christmas shopping done at North Hills’ JCPenney last night, which is a phrase I never thought I’d write. I wonder if they’ll find space in the redevelopment…they seem to be one of the few JCPenneys left that’s worth its space.

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From what I’ve heard, they were hoping for a hotel component of the development but nobody has really showed any interest (besides a Holiday Inn which they probably said “meh” to), so they’re probably revising what they want to do going forward whether scaling it back a little or changing uses.

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Reminiscent of the Durham’s ‘The Pickle Tower’.
17 stories of awesome, but in the middle of giant parking lot. :drooling_face:

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That’s the first thing I thought of. They’re reminiscent enough of each other that I wouldn’t be surprised if they were even designed by the same firm. I used to like this tower when I was a kid (because it meant we were getting close to Nana’s house (and she had cable, not just 4 public access channels)), before I knew better. At least it isn’t the tallest building in Durham anymore! Scratch that, I guess it is still the tallest? I was under the impression that One City Center was supposed to have taken that superlative, but I guess not. Shame.

Interesting, it seems it was the first one added to the top 5 tallest in Durham since the 80s.

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Interesting, if you remove the spike from the University Tower it’s the same height as One City Center at 296 feet.

https://www.emporis.com/buildings/127807/university-tower-durham-nc-usa

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it’s crazy that the PNC tower is almost double the height of one city center. OCC TOWERS over durham’s skyline.

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Who’d have thought. I had believed that University Tower was designed at Murphy Jahn. It’s not. Done by Durwood Pickle.

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“The Pickle. The Green Weenie. The Dallas Phallus: For the past 29 years, University Tower has been derided for its resemblance to a fully erect male member. And with a leafy forest at its base … well, let’s move on.”

Personally, “Greenie Weenie” is my favorite name for this building.

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I’d hate to see what they call the (former) Wachovia building in Winston Salem?? Growing up, I always called it the Baseball Building. (I was naive, I did grow up in Mayberry afterall…) But the names I heard people call it in college… LMAO I have always loved the WS skyline, even if it does have a giant tampon front and center. :stuck_out_tongue:

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“The phallus palace”

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Must be a Surry county man lol

Name doesn’t mean everything (though budget might) but that Winston Salem building was designed by Cesar Pelli. Same architect as BoA HQ in Charlotte and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur which was once the tallest building(s) in the world. More recently his firm designed the Salesforce Tower in San Fran.

Yeppers!! Surry County by way of Stokes :+1:

Pelli had some good intentions in his design. The dome is supposed to resemble a rosebud about to open up. And is the only granite domed building in the world. Being a lifelong Moravian, he did include a lot of nods to the simplicity of Moravian architecture (half arches over the entrances, Moravian star in the floor of the lobby, etc.) Not to mention “Wachovia” was the name of the tract of land that the Moravians originally settled. But the actual execution, leaves a lot to the (dirty) imagination IMO.

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